Veiling of Mayawati statues, BSP symbol yet to begin

A day after Election Commission ordered statues of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati and her party symbol to be draped "at the earliest", work on it is yet to commence with the district authorities claiming they are awaiting the order.

A day after Election Commission ordered statues of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati and her party symbol to be draped "at the earliest", work on it is yet to commence with the district authorities claiming they are awaiting the order.

The EC had on Saturday ordered that all statues of Mayawati and her party symbol, the elephant, installed at several places in UP be covered until the Assembly poll were over in the state.

Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi had said the directive would be implemented "at the earliest" as the matter was related to the model code of conduct.

"The Commission has decided that statues of the CM and elephants will be draped," Quraishi had said.

Some workers were seen with material near Amebdkar Memorial in Gomti Nagar area this morning but they returned soon after claiming that they had not yet received the order to cover the statues.

The work is likely to be executed by the Lucknow Development Authority (LDA), however, its officials said that they had not received orders in this regard yet.

"We will start the work as soon as we get the orders," a senior LDA official said.

When asked District Magistrate, who is also happens the district election officer, Anil Kumar Sagar told PTI that his office has not received orders of EC.

"I have not received the orders (of covering statues) from the EC yet. It's evening now and becoming dark...We will see what can be done in this regard tomorrow," Sagar said.

The ruling BSP has termed the order as "one-sided and against natural justice".

"The Election Commission today directed covering the statues accepting the one sided memorandum of anti-Dalit parties like Congress, BJP and SP and it is also in violation of article 14 of the Constitution," BSP general secretary Satish C Misra had said on Saturday.